Chamonix Activity Report: 8th June 2012

Starting out for the climb involves a walk down the ridge from the summit station on the Aiguille du Midi and short ski round to the Cosmiques refuge.

The 1 am alarm comes all to quickly, you don’t feel like breakfast but it’s necessary.

Out the door and skis on, a short slide brings us to the base of Mont Blanc du Tacul, skins on the base of our skis and up we go.

A few hundred meters up and it gets steep and firm, switch to crampons and skis on our backs. Two hours grind further on and we are on the shoulder, changing back to skis to slide over to Mont Maudit, it’s still very dark. It’s time to rope up as dawn approaches, it’s chilly but not cold, there is a perfect stillness in the air as the light changes.

The shoulder of Maudit is a steep but short ascent, with a fixed rope, ice-axe as well as the crampons all goes smoothly. We are rewarded by an amazing vista, deep into France, Italy and Switzerland.

A short descent brings us to Col Brenva, conditions have changed and the snow is harder. There is a stiff breeze trying to freeze us, we are feeling the effects of altitude and one of my crampons has collapsed.

We eat some food, strap my crampon back together and we are ready for the final slog.

It’s not very far in terms of distance or height from Col Brenva to the summit of Mont Blanc, but it’s the toughest part of the climb – how hard a gentle slope can feel when the altitude and cold are biting away at you. At 11 am having been on our feet for just over 9 hours we’ve made it. It’s a beautiful sunny day and we can see (almost) forever in all directions. Anything higher is a long way round the curvature of the earth.

Smiles, photos, snacks and it’s time to ski.

At 4807m there is a lot of wind, hence our first few turns are on hard snow. A little lower and we have powder to play in. Amazing feeling to ski, when everything is below and nothing is above you.
Seracs tower above us, beautiful but menacing, our snow changes form powder to smooth refrozen silver and finally to spring snow as we approach the Grand Mulets refuge. Below the Mulets we rope up, keeping our skis on to enter the Jonction of glaciers and cross onto the Bossons.

Skins on and with a bit of scrambling, we are on the slushy traverse below the Aiguille du Midi – not far to go now – two short descents, some rough loose scree scrambling and a short walk brings us stumbling up to the mid station of the Aiguille du Midi - 23 hours after we passed though it on our way up.

Many thanks to Glen and Kimberly Plake, my intrepid ski and climbing partners on this rather special outing. If you are looking to climb & ski the Mont Blanc there are a number of Chamonix guides that offer this.

Idris Skis design and manufacture environmentally friendly freeride skis in Chamonix.